The British Fantasy Society’s Fantasycon is almost upon us and your favourite geek feminist podcast is hitting the road to Peterborough (or the rails). It’ll be Lucy’s fourth Fantasycon in a row – why does she like this provincial little con so much? Why does she choose to talk about herself in the third person? We may never know. But it’s true – I do enjoy Fantasycon mainly because it’s small and friendly; the comfy slipper of the con world. It’s smaller than London Geekfest – which is fun, but does come with the unpleasant whiff of politics. Fantasycon draws familiar faces, so there’s always going to be someone you know hanging by the bar.
The panels tend to stick to old themes, but there are a few new ones in there this year focusing on writing in education and the industry, as well as for audio, and several cool-looking workshops. The horror genre also seems well-represented. We’re liking the sound of the Women in Horror panel on Saturday. 2017’s Guests of Honour are Pat Cadigan, Ben Aaronovitch and Nancy Kilpatrick.
So what mischief are the BTGS crew getting up to on Friday 29th?
2.30pm – Megan is kicking off the con’s first panel, moderating The Role of Reviewers. She’ll be joined by our Charlotte, plus Joely Black and Sandra Unerman. Do check out Megan’s excellent blog. Pop Verse publishes reviews of books and films, covering all the latest releases.
6.30pm – Charlotte is part of the Ghost Writing panel, moderated by the super Alasdair Stuart with Andrew Knighton and Dan Coxon. If you’re a regular listener, you’ll know that Charlotte writes, ghostwrites and edits across multiple genres, so this is not a panel to miss! Here she explains a little about her role as a ghostwriter.
8.30pm – Be honest. Of us all, Megan is totally the most evil. She nails the evil laugh. So it’s natural that she’s appearing on the Dungeons and Disorderly – the Evil Sorcerer of Terrifying Evil panel (yes it’s really called that). Her companions in evil are David Thomas Moore, Sam Bradbury, Jeanette Ng, Nate Crowley and Adrian Tchaikovsky.
9pm – Lucy will be reading alongside the actual Jen Williams and Den Patrick of author-ly and SRFC fame.
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Roll on Saturday 30th
11am – Bright and early it’s our official Breaking the Glass Slipper Podcast: Live at Fantasycon! We are hugely fortunate to be joined by Fantasycon Guest of Honour and award-winning author Pat Cadigan. We’ll be talking to Pat about the resurgence of cyberpunk, writing both novels and short fiction, the relationship between technology and the mind, and keeping her ideas fresh.
9.30pm – Forgo the Karaoke and catch both Megan and Lucy on the Good Vs Evil panel! Who doesn’t love a good scrap between the original binary tropes? We’ll be joined by RJ Barker, Anna Stephens and Harriet Goodchild.
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Finishing up on Sunday 1st
1.30pm – Book-ending the con, Megan will be discussing Disposable Bad Guys, one stereotype we love to hate, alongside Susan Bartholomew, Anna Stephens and Kristina Perez.
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A busy weekend as you can see, so I’m sure you’ll catch us somewhere around the con. And if not, try the bar – that’s always a fair bet. Good luck to those up for British Fantasy Awards and an advance thank you to the organisers for a job that sounds as tricky as herding cats. See y’all soon!
